RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18906/iran-cyber-attacks

The small country of Albania appeared to have more courage and stronger leadership than the Biden administration: it recently sent a strong message to the Iranian regime after Iran’s cyberattacks against Albania in July. Albania severed diplomatic relations with Tehran and ordered Iranian diplomats and embassy staff to leave within 24 hours.

“This extreme response… is fully proportionate to the gravity and risk of the cyberattack that threatened to paralyze public services, erase digital systems and hack into state records, steal government intranet electronic communication and stir chaos and insecurity in the country”. — Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Reuters, September 7, 2022.

“The IRGC clearly makes the country one of the best and most advanced nations when it comes to cyberwarfare. In a case of escalation between Iran and the West, Iran will likely aim to launch a cyberattack against critical infrastructures in the US and its allies, (targeting) energy infrastructure, financial institutions and transportation systems.” — Institute for National Security Studies.

Cyber warfare could have consequences at least as severe as military actions: cyberattacks can take control of or disrupt an entire nation’s infrastructure — public services, hospitals, transportation, internet, municipal or governmental institutions, the energy sector, steal people’s private information, take control of another country’s missiles, unmanned vehicles (drones), and even its military’s intelligence, command, control and communications.

That is just what the West needs: the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism and cyberattacker extraordinaire, soon to have an unlimited quantity of nuclear weapons, precision ballistic missiles to deliver them, and up to a trillion dollars – and in a deal negotiated by — of all countries — Russia! And the US government seriously thinks that this mix will prevent war? Let us instead follow the example of spunky Albania, punish bad behavior rather than reward it, and make sure that Biden’s atrocious new “Iran deal,” reportedly “off the table at least for the time being,” is off the table forever.

Not only is the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to the Iranian regime’s terror activities and plots abroad, it has also been completely silent about the mullahs’ escalating cyberattacks.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18907/european-energy-in-crisis

In response to Russia severely restricting or cutting off gas supplies, EU governments will take dramatic actions over the coming months. Germany recently announced it would keep two of the nuclear plants it was shuttering as backups, just in case. EU leaders will then go back to the voters and describe the amazing job they did while failing to mention they were the ones who made the decisions that put their countries in this crisis in the first place.

The entire current crisis was avoidable if the EU had developed a rational plan instead of one based on a daydream, no matter how enticing.

The U.S. needs urgently to examine what is happening in Europe and develop a rational energy transition plan. Any long-term solution must include strategies for reliable power production, affordable sustainable energy and a massively strengthened electrical grid.

Europe’s plan was built on the hope that consumers would accept higher prices, that Russia and Putin would be reliable, and that battery storage technology would be robust enough to cover the times when “the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.”

This strategy, sadly always doomed to failure, provides a cautionary tale for “solutions” based solely on hope.

The U.S. should not repeat the same mistakes as the EU by continuing down a path that cuts domestic fossil fuel production, bans gasoline-powered vehicles, and ignores that the power generation capacity and energy infrastructure are not in place to achieve an unrealistic and unfortunately unsustainable green agenda.

Europe is facing a growing energy crisis. Individuals and industries are being battered by rising energy costs. On August 31, Russia shut down the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany for initially what was supposed to be 72 hours, but followed by an announcement of “technical difficulties” that would prevent a resumption. Russian energy giant Gazprom also announced that natural gas supplies to French energy company Engie SA would be immediately reduced. These actions have created significant uncertainty and the threat of much higher energy prices in Europe as the cold winter season approaches.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18899/communist-china-gorbachev

Social commentary by Chinese Communist Party organs continue to urge members to be vigilant against the West’s strategy of “peaceful evolution,” meaning the eventual adoption by the Party of reforms that might sap it of its revolutionary aggressive stance against liberal democracies.

Under Xi’s tutelage, the CCP strengthened its role in the life of the ordinary Chinese citizen. President Xi galvanized CCP bureaucrats to accelerate a mass migration of China’s rural peasantry to urbanized environments. Consequently, tens of millions of Chinese were forced to learn new skills in manufacturing jobs. This transformation helped lift many out of abject poverty, thereby expanding China’s middle class as well as the domestic market for Chinese goods. The urbanization process also helped the CCP to better control China’s huge population by concentrating people in cities.

The USSR had failed to improve the quality of life of the Soviet citizenry. CCP leaders possibly reasoned that, because of this failure, Soviet citizens began to challenge Communist rule…. As openness became the norm, people in the USSR quickly saw that citizens in Western countries had freer and more comfortable lives.

Instead of imitating Gorbachev’s “Glasnost” (political openness) China constructed the “Great Firewall” which filters all traffic on the Chinese Internet. Chinese authorities also ban the citizenry access to Facebook and Wikipedia.

China conducts its diplomatic relations even with foreign countries strictly on a transactional business basis. The CCP did not seek to export its revolution violently, as did Iran. Beijing also refused to allow its few allies, such as Pakistan, to drain its national resources. That was another self-inflicted burden that Moscow shouldered: its burden of bankrupt colonies in Eastern Europe.

China, instead, is offering its own model of governance — a one-party system, tight control, a controlled economy, social stability rather than individual freedoms, internet control, and “to protect the dominant role of the CPC” — to the world as a viable alternative to the American system…. China remains resolute in its campaigns against any movement that might possess the energy to compete with the CCP, whether the Falun Gong movement or Christianity.

China’s leaders apparently still worry, otherwise they would not be investing such enormous resources in domestic espionage and repressing their own people.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commentators reacting to the death of Mikhail Gorbachev blamed the former Soviet leader for the demise of the Soviet Union. Hu Xijin, former editor of the CCP’s Global Times, wrote that Gorbachev garnered praise in the West “by selling out the interests of his homeland.” Xiang Ligang, a hardline journalist on international relations, claimed that Gorbachev was responsible for the war in Ukraine and unspecified disasters to follow. State controlled academia echoed similar themes. Beijing-based Renmin University Political Science Professor Shi Yinhong said: “The Chinese Communist Party is very critical of [Gorbachev], believing that he betrayed the Soviet Union.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/14/ukraine-with-a-whimper-or-a-bang/

Russia started the war with Ukraine in late February with a shock-and-awe effort to grab Kyiv. It failed both to decapitate the government and absorb half the country in one fell swoop. 

Soon the conflict descended into a war of attrition in Eastern Ukraine over the occupied majority Russian-speaking borderlands. 

That deadlock was eventually going to be resolved by relative morale, manpower, and supply.

Would the high-tech weaponry and money of the United States and Europe allow heroic Ukrainian forces to be better equipped than a larger Russian force—drawing on an economy 10 times greater and a population nearly four times larger than Ukraine’s?

After the latest sudden Ukrainian territorial gains and embarrassing Russian retreats, we now know the answer. 

Russia may be bigger and richer than Ukraine, but it is not up to the combined resources of the United States, along with the nations of NATO and the European Union. 

Most are now in a de facto proxy war with an increasingly overwhelmed Russia. And so far, a circumspect China has not stepped in to try to remedy the Russian dilemma. 

So, what will become the next, and most dangerous, stage III of the war? 

A heady Ukraine believes it now has the wherewithal to clear out the entire occupied Donbass and turn southward to free Crimea. To complete that agenda of rolling back all Russian aggression since 2014, it may step up hitting strategic targets across the Russia border and on the Black Sea.

Again, what will a nuclear Russia—run by an ailing, desperate autocrat—do when a far smaller Ukraine finally and deservedly humiliates her before a global audience?

Will Putin cut off all European energy supplies to force a European end to supplying Ukraine? 

Russia has all but done that. But so far Putin has gained little strategic advantage on the battlefield, despite current European fears of an impending bitter winter.

Will Putin go fully medieval on Ukraine, like the carnage in Chechnya when he leveled Grozny in 2000? 

But a European Ukraine is vast compared to tiny Chechnya. And the Chechens even without allies still withstood a decade of savage Russian brutality.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18903/iran-russia-alliance

Significantly, Russia and Iran’s cooperation extends to the military and space fields, with Russia recently helping Iran to launch a new satellite into space.

Iran’s Khayyam satellite “will greatly enhance Tehran’s ability to spy on military targets across the Middle East… [and give] Tehran “unprecedented capabilities, including near-continuous monitoring of sensitive facilities in Israel and the Persian Gulf.” — The Washington Post, August 4, 2022.

“Iran could share the imagery with pro-Iranian militia groups across the region, from the Houthi rebels battling Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen to Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria.” — Unnamed Middle Eastern official, The Washington Post, June 10, 2021.

“As Iran perfects its missile arsenal… alongside its growing UAV capability throughout the Middle East –being able to sync those capabilities with satellite capabilities and surveillance will only increase the lethality of the Iranian threat.” — Richard Goldberg, former Iran analyst in the Trump administration’s National Security Council, The Washington Post, August 4, 2022.

Iran has also become a major developer and producer of drones…. Most recently, Iran claimed that it had developed a long-range suicide drone “designed to hit Israel’s Tel Aviv, Haifa.”

Despite this acknowledged “profound threat” emanating from the mutually beneficial alliance between Russia and Iran, the Biden administration nevertheless has been making dangerous concessions to revive the nuclear deal, which would only deepen the threat and benefit not only Iran, but also Russia.

Let us hope that the new “Iran nuclear deal,” reportedly “off the table for the time being” is off the table for good.

Iran and Russia have been strengthening their alliance recently, growing it gradually to such an extent that the Wall Street Journal wrote on August 27 that the two countries were “forging tighter ties than ever,” as both countries face continued international isolation.

https://bit.ly/3eQDji5

*Is the diplomatic option viable when dealing with Iran’s Ayatollahs, who have promoted – since 1979 – child martyrdom in their school curriculum and on the battlefield?!

*Is the diplomatic option viable when dealing with Iran’s Ayatollahs, who have espoused child martyrdom in the service of their Islamic Revolution, which aims to topple all pro-US Arab Sunni regimes and bring “the Great American Satan” and other Western “infidels” to submission?!

*Is the diplomatic option viable when dealing with Iran’s Ayatollahs, who have urged Iranian children to participate in the annual November 13 “National Day of Fighting Arrogance” (commemorating the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and holding over 50 Americans hostages for 444 days), declaring their hatred toward “the bullying and oppressive USA” and chanting “Death to America”?!

Luring children into mine-sweeping

Brainwashing children into martyrdom is presented by the Ayatollahs as an extension of the Shiite mythology surrounding the 680 AD Battle of Karbala, which was the Big Bang of the Sunni-Shiite conflict and the role model for martyrdom. During the battle, Hussain ibn Ali, the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Muhammad, and his warriors – including children – were betrayed and massacred by the Sunni Caliph Yazid.

“During the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war, children were sent to be slaughtered on mine-sweeping missions…. Iranian officials forced underage Afghan refugees to fight in the Syrian civil war on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s government….”

According to the Geneva-based Refworld (an arm of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees), “[Iranian] child soldiers, some as young as nine, were used extensively during the Iran-Iraq war…. They were given ‘keys to paradise’ and promised that they would go directly to heaven if they died as martyrs against the Iraqi enemy….   

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ukraines-incredible-success-turns-the-tables-on-russia-kharkiv-kherson/

Ukraine’s swift counter-offensive has captured more territory in four days than Russia’s huge army did in six months. The victories go beyond the 3,000 kilometers of liberated land. The Ukrainians have managed to break and scatter the enemy army across city after city in Kharkiv (in the country’s northeast) and are now moving swiftly into Luhansk (in the north Donbas region).

Russian commanders have abandoned major cities and supply hubs, forfeited their hard-won control of vital rail lines and highways, and fled eastward for their lives. Their soldiers have dropped their guns and abandoned vast stores of heavy weaponry, from tanks to anti-aircraft batteries. It has been a complete rout.

How did Ukraine accomplish this swift and unexpected victory? With very shrewd tactics, courageous fighters, superior intelligence, and precision weapons donated by the US, Britain, Poland, and other NATO partners. The intelligence was supplied by the US and NATO, plus partisans behind the lines and Ukrainian drones. Their work pinpointed Russian troops, supplies, and command centers, which were then destroyed by HIMARS missiles and advanced artillery.

Not only was the Kharkiv offensive well-coordinated and efficiently executed, it completely surprised Russian forces in the area. That’s extraordinary in today’s information age. Yet the Ukrainians managed it, completely blocking any leaks about a forthcoming attack. Ukraine’s operational security bespeaks both a skilled military and a nation united by Russia’s unprovoked aggression.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18854/persecution-of-christians-july

After raping a Christian woman, her Muslim employer told her and her family—both still not over the shock—to get back to work. — Pakistan.

“The scale of killings, displacement and wanton destruction of property by these Fulani jihadist militia only buttresses the now revealed agenda to depopulate Christian communities in Nigeria and take over lands. Tellingly, the government in power in Nigeria at the moment continues to do nothing about these persistent attacks, save to give laughable reasons like ‘climate change’ or that some Muslims too are sometimes killed in attacks by so-called bandits.” — Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, Independent Catholic News, July 19, 2022, Nigeria.

On July 4, a Christian mechanic [Ashfaq Masih, 34] who had been imprisoned for the last five years while awaiting trial under a false accusation of allegedly insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, was sentenced to death by hanging in a Pakistani court. — churchinchains.ie, July 19 2022, Pakistan.

“I told the real story to a police officer but he did not record my version but conducted investigation ex-parte.” — Ashfaq Masih, churchinchains.ie, July 7, 2022, Pakistan.

“The judges are aware that such cases are made to punish and settle personal grudges with the opponents, especially against the Christians…. Masih’s case was very clear—the shop owner wanted him out and Naveed was a business rival who implicated him in a false blasphemy case. He is innocent and has already spent five years in prison for a crime he never committed.” — Nasir Saeed, Director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, claas.org.uk, July 7, 2022, Pakistan.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of July 2022:

The Muslim Abuse and Rape of Christian Women in Pakistan

After raping a Christian woman, her Muslim employer told her and her family—both still not over the shock—to get back to work. Rimsha Riaz, 18, and several others of her Christian household worked at a glass crushing company, where they were described as “hard-working loyal employees for Haji Ali Akbar, a successful Muslim businessman.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18876/west-russia-enemy

On a broader tableau, Putin started blocking NATO’s plans to gain a presence in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Moscow helped overthrow the pro-West regime in Kyrgyzstan, acquired military bases in Armenia and Tajikistan, and clinched a $4 billion deal to supply arms to Iraq.

At the same time, Putin armed secessionists in Moldova and eastern Ukraine and, in August 2008, invaded Georgia to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US reacted by sending a warship on a brief tour of the Black Sea.

In hindsight, it seems that Putin had worked out a careful plan to test the Western powers’ limit of tolerance as he went from one mischief to another.

In 2012 Putin started getting involved in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Tehran. After testing the waters, Putin also cast himself as a big player in Libya in the hope of getting a chunk of it when and if it was broken into pieces.

Each time Putin misbehaved, Western powers reacted with bland statements, the expulsion of a few diplomats, and expressions of sympathy for Alexei Navalny, one of Tsar Vladimir’s more colorful critics. Meanwhile, Putin built a political support base in the West by financing several parties of both left and right.

Putin at first seized control of chunks of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk and, once convinced that no one would stop him, went along and annexed the whole of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. He also obtained a base in Syria, restoring Russia’s military presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Empire. His next move was to turn the Caspian Sea into a Russian lake, excluding “outsiders”, meaning the Western powers.

It is hard to know what goes on in Putin’s mind. But his favorite “philosopher,” Alexander Dugin, has dismissed the leaders of Western democracies as a bunch of lily-livered pansies interested in nothing but money and show-off.

Western money, technology and, above all, greed helped Putin become, in the words of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a threat to world peace.

“One would think the Tsar is back!” This is how a colleague covering the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg in July 2006 commented after a visit by President Vladimir Putin to the facilities provided for journalists covering the “historic event.” Historic because this was the first time that Russia, admitted as a full member of the club of “great powers” in 1997, was hosting the summit.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18871/iran-terrorist-proxies

Hezbollah and its patrons in Tehran have done nothing to help end the disastrous economic crisis in Lebanon, where nearly 80% of the people live below the poverty line. The World Bank has warned that the crisis ranks as one of the three most severe the world has seen since the mid-19th century.

Hezbollah does not pose a threat just to Israel, but also to the Lebanese people, America’s Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, and to America itself, especially from Cuba and Venezuela. ” Iran’s outreach to Venezuela, Asia Times notes, ” is partly driven by economic interests and partly a desire to gain a foothold in ‘America’s backyard,’ as the government parlance asserts. That explains the increasing appetite of the Islamic revolutionary God corps for building up ties in Latin America and even entertaining the idea of a military presence in Venezuela’s waters….

“The problem for each of the states,” according to Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at the University of Texas, this July “is lack of access to global capital.” It is a problem that the promised billions from the Biden administration would immediately fix.

Yet, instead of working to alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah is continuing to gin up for war with Israel, a move that will bring still more disaster on Lebanon.

“What is happening in Lebanon today is an organized terrorist threat by Iran and its militias, especially the terrorist Hezbollah. Hezbollah wants to destroy Lebanon and turn it into a state similar to Iran. We appeal to all the Arabs to help Lebanon before it drowns in the sea of Iran.” — Rami Naeem, Lebanese political analyst, Twitter, August 29, 2022.

“Who cares about a country such as Lebanon that has no water, electricity, university, school, hospital, and banks? Lebanon has no Arab, Gulf or international relations. Forty years have passed since Lebanon was brought into the [Iranian-led] axis of conflicts, wars, misery, bankruptcy and the collapse of the state.” — Dr. Charbel Azar, member of the Sovereign Front for Lebanon, Akhbar Al-Yawm, August 25, 2022.

“The Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] has seized over 700 million narcotic pills and hundreds of kilos of hashish smuggled from or via Lebanon since 2015.” — Waleed Bukhari, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Saudi Gazette, August 30, 2022.

“The terrorist party that brought Lebanon to the brink of political, economic and social precipice seeks, with Iranian support, to export chaos and destruction.” — Okaz, August 24, 2022.

The Arabs fear that an influx of billions of dollars pouring into the mullahs’ coffers will result in Hezbollah and the rest of Iran’s terrorist proxies stepping up their aggression not only against Israel, but also against America’s Arab allies and friends in the Middle East, not to mention the United States and Europe. The Arabs want the Biden administration to grasp that appeasement of Iran’s mullahs will further embolden the terrorists and undermine America’s strength in the Arab world.

If and when the Biden administration signs a new nuclear deal with Iran, the mullahs’ Lebanese terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, will undoubtedly benefit from the billions of dollars that the Iranian regime is expected to receive once the sanctions on their country are lifted. Hezbollah will use the money to obtain more weapons, tighten its grip on Lebanon and prepare for more war with Israel. It will also use the money to undermine the security and stability of America’s allies in the Arab world.